Benefit plans which provide partial or complete reimbursement of expenditures incurred by participants in the plan are commonly offered by employers, associations, commercial entities and the like, which sponsor such plans as fringe benefits for employees or members or as a commercial service available to the general public. These benefit plans comprise a wide range of plan design options, including, for example, types of expenditures covered by the plan, limits on reimbursements to the participants and payments made by the participants for coverage by the plan. Potential sponsors of benefit plans are often constrained by cost limitations in determining the design options in the plan or plans the sponsor offers to its participants. Uncertainty in future cost expectations frustrates the efforts of sponsors to provide their participants the most desirable plan design options within given cost constraints. Because offering participants a choice between multiple plans having different plan design options exacerbates the resulting future cost uncertainty, sponsors are reluctant to undertake this approach, thus denying sponsors the ability to offer their participants access to a variety of benefit plans having plan design options most closely tailored to the participant's needs.